American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.
Harvey Pekar

Everybody's like everybody else, and everybody's different from everybody else.
Harvey Pekar

I came up with American Splendor. Some people think it's American Squalor.
Harvey Pekar

I continue to be disappointed that people don't try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.
Harvey Pekar

I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren't just kid stuff.
Harvey Pekar

I don't write about certain arguments I have with my wife. I'd get my head torn off if wrote about certain things.
Harvey Pekar

I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.
Harvey Pekar

I really don't have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It's like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.
Harvey Pekar

I think comics have far more potential than a lot of people realize.
Harvey Pekar

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.
Harvey Pekar


I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form.
Harvey Pekar

I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.
Harvey Pekar

I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishes.
Harvey Pekar

I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.
Harvey Pekar

I'd been familiar with comics, and I'd collected 'em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn't much I was interested in.
Harvey Pekar

I'm a guy that likes to sit in one place.
Harvey Pekar

I'm doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys.
Harvey Pekar

I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writers.
Harvey Pekar

It didn't take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.
Harvey Pekar

It makes you feel good to know that there's other people afflicted like you.
Harvey Pekar